


hell is other people

by rueya



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rueya/pseuds/rueya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their souls have been stripped of every facade, of every plate of armor, until they are left raw and bare with no one to trust but each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the night is hard to get through

He finds her down on one knee in the bathroom, looking at the wall and whimpering.

She glows softly in the dark, the phantasmal white light surrounding her like a veil. She’s monochrome - nothing more than accents of blue and shades of white. Her porcelain skin, unblemished by the blood of her past life, is nearly translucent when he stares at it long enough.

The fluorescence makes the bathroom look like a crime scene.

When he sees her like this, moving around with not a speck of red in sight, he can almost pretend that they are alive again, that this is all just a terrible nightmare and he’ll open his eyes soon—

(—he stops that train of thought dead in its tracks. they’re dead, they’re fucking dead, nothing more than ectoplasm and discarded memories, and there’s no going back, no checkpoint, no extra life, no cheat to get out of this one.)

She doesn’t notice him standing there by the door left ajar.

It’s a familiar scene — too familiar, so familiar that the struggle flashes through his mind’s eye like lightning, and he reaches out and places a tentative hand on her shoulder.

She whips around, eyes wide with panic, and lets out a brief but bloodcurdling screech before standing to her feet and stumbling out into the bedroom.

“Wait a minute!” he yells as he follows her and manages to take hold of her by the arm ( _oh yes, it’s a familiar scene indeed_ ).

“Let me go!” she screams, thrashing wildly.

“Why? What’s there to be afraid of?”

She stops and looks at him, and for a minute he thinks she’s going to burst into tears.

Nevertheless, she manages to wrench herself free from his grip and take a few steps back. “What do you want from me?”

“If we’re both gonna be dead like this, I might as well talk to you.”

In reality, though, he doesn’t know what to tell her. They stand vis-à-vis, simultaneously strangers and the closest friends they’ll ever have. In the end, all they wanted to say is suspended in the air, unspoken but understood nonetheless. (It was obvious enough.)

_I didn’t want you to die._

_I don’t know what I was thinking._

_Do you believe that?_

_I do. For now. Can you forgive me?_

_I guess. And I’m sorry._

_Me too._

Her muscles, previously tense, relax. She looks tired as hell — tired of dealing with him, tired of being a ghost, just plain old fucking tired, he can’t tell.

She suddenly sits down on the floor and leans back against the wall. “I thought there was an afterlife.”

“Well, ya thought wrong then, huh?”

“I thought ghosts didn’t exist. Imagine what Hagakure-kun would say?”

“Oh, Jesus, don’t even go there.”

He sits down next to her. The silence between them is a thick sheet of ice; impermeable and frigid — unforgiving.

She finally speaks, her voice just barely above a whisper.

“Can we call a truce?”

His throat feels dry, though he still can’t quite grasp this new set of sensations that comes with transcending the physical plane.

“Yeah. I mean, it’d be pretty stupid to hold grudges now, you know? Kind of late for that.”

She laughs; the sound is broken. It reminds him of the noise his CDs would make when they skipped after countless years of abuse.

“Okay.” She’s silent for minutes, hours, years — he doesn’t know what time is anymore. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

After a few more moments of icy, fearful silence, she speaks again.

“Leon,” she says slowly, as if turning a foreign word over and over again in her mind, “do you think there’s anything waiting for us after this?”

He nods — it’s not an answer, but an acknowledgement. Neither of them wants to know the truth, whatever it may be.

“I’m scared.”

She’s shaking now, her deep blue eyes wide with the fear of the unknown. She draws her knees up to her chest and rests her head against her legs.

The utter pointlessness of it all would be humorous if it wasn’t their reality. Every little thing, every little goddamn thing that he ever concerned himself with while his heart was still beating seems embarrassingly inane now.

He’s starting to think that pretending to be strong now would just make him more of a coward than anything else.

So he reaches forward and grips her hand tightly, as if clinging to the very last sliver of dear life he has, and looks straight into her eyes.

“Me too.”

She smiles sadly and moves closer to him. She rests her head against his shoulder, and out of part instinct, part conscious sentimentality, he wraps an arm around her waist. It’s kind of fucked up when he thinks about it — so he chooses not to.

The sound of her paradoxical breathing falls into the slow, steady rhythm of sleep.

He sits here, propped up against the wall of his victim’s former room with an arm wrapped around her ghost, and stares into the darkness, the endless abyss that he can only assume is a preview of things to come.

And even after everything, even after the murder and the trial and that ineffably horrific fucking execution, he’s never felt more afraid and alone.

So he moves a little closer, holds her a little tighter, and waits for Hell to open up underneath them and swallow them whole.


	2. we all got wood and nails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hope for second chances is all they can cling to in the darkness of their fear.

Weak in life, weak in death.

He wanders around as a fragile little ghost, never straying far from the boys’ locker room ( _sealed away in silence, never to be entered again_ ), shouldering the burden of his weakness like a cross.

He doesn’t know when the day begins and when it ends, or if days even matter anymore — that is, until one particular day when he isn’t alone.

In the harsh fluorescent light of the locker room, a tall, familiar figure stands by the door, surveying the room with discomfort and disdain.

“Jeez, this place...never thought I’d see it again.” Something tells him that he had wanted to keep it that way.

The very presence of Oowada Mondo’s ghost would send chills down Chihiro’s spine if he still had one.

(And yet, it looks so fragile, on the very precipice of fading away forever, and that thought is somehow more terrifying than anything else.)

Chihiro hides in a corner out of his sight.

“I dunno if you’re there, but in case you are…” Mondo winces for a fraction of a second before scratching the back of his neck and looking down. “I’m not gonna ask you to forgive me or anything. I just...want ya to listen, ‘cause I don’t know what’s going to happen or where I’m going after this.”

Chihiro purses his lips and stares at the floor.

“But, I...you know, when I was — when we were alive, I wish I had the time — the time to…” He trails off, clearly attempting to fend off the emotion threatening to seep into his voice. “Shit. Shit! What am I even doing here? What am I even supposed to fucking say? ‘I’m sorry?’ How can I settle for that when...”

Mondo grits his teeth in frustration, clenches and unclenches his fists. His voice is cracking now, threatening to shatter into a thousand pieces.

“Who’s the strong one now, huh?”

The sobs he had been choking back now rack his body with ruthless force as he sinks to his knees and buries his face in his palms.

He doesn’t know how to cope with this, with seeing Mondo’s very spirit stripped so raw and bare while he hides in the shadows.

There’s no reason to hide anymore, he decides — after all, what worldly consequences threaten him now?

He steps out to where Mondo is sitting on the floor, his gait timid then confident as he remembers that nothing matters, his insecurities, his ideals, none of them matter now—

Mondo finally looks up ( _he can see the incandescent whites and greys and yellows of his form, how death transformed him_ ), and his eyes widen as he instinctively slides back away from him.

“You,” he sputters. “You were here? You heard all of that?”

“I did.” Chihiro clasps his hands, keeps them close to his chest, as if they will form a shield against whatever words his killer ( _his killer?_ the thought has an unbearable aftertaste) may sling at him.

“Jesus Christ. What a fuckin’ place to meet, and like this, too. Look, I—”

“O-Oowada-kun, I know there’s a lot to say, but maybe it would be best if we put it aside for now,” he says cautiously, sitting down on the floor opposite Mondo.

“How can I—” His features contort in anger before it fades away, just as quickly as it came. “Fine. You heard what I said before, anyway.”

They sit quietly across from one another, both of them staring at the floor. Minutes — many long, condemning minutes — pass before Mondo breaks the silence.

“Oy, Fujisaki…”

“Yes?”

Mondo scratches the back of his neck and looks away, refusing to meet Chihiro’s gaze.

“Do you think we get a second chance at this? Reincarnation or some shit?”

Chihiro presses a finger to his lip thoughtfully. “I’ve never thought about it that much, but I suppose it’s possible, all things considered.”

He nods, clearly turning the concept over in his mind — the idea of another chance to do things right after the disaster that this life proved to be certainly sounds like a panacea for their problems.

Mondo suddenly leans forward and grips his shoulders, his face dangerously close to his own.

“Well, whatever comes next, I’ll find you, okay? I don’t give a shit if you come back as a European prince and I end up being a Chinese hobo or something. I’ll come find you.”

Something inside Chihiro churns, as if this sentiment is enough to give him butterflies in his stomach. He doesn’t entirely understand how that could be for a metaphysical entity — (but then, he isn’t quite sure he _wants_ to understand anything about being a ghost beyond what he already knows).

He opens his mouth to respond, but Mondo continues on passionately, still not meeting his gaze as his grip tightens. He pulls his hands away and looks down at them.

“And I’ll fix everything, I promise. No matter what, I’ll make it all right. I won’t let you down, not you or anyone else, ever again, I swear…”

He’s talking more to himself than to Chihiro at this point, but Chihiro can’t bring himself to interrupt this painfully honest eruption of emotion.

So he merely contents himself to listen, reaching out and holding his hand tightly, reassuringly, hoping that he’ll understand.

Mondo looks at him tiredly, but — it may be all in his head — he looks free, so free that he could wait at the gates of Hell and still feel relieved.

“Thank you, Fujisaki. Just...thanks. I don’t got an excuse for what happened, but I’ll make it up to you somehow. Even if you’re the one who ends up killin’ me in the next life, I won’t mind. I won’t mind, as long as it’s you,” he mutters, shaking his head before turning to look at him. He offers a broken but sincere grin. “But, you know, since we’re here and all, why don’t we stick around a little while longer?”

His eyes are so full of hope and profound fear.

( _If he’s being honest with himself, he, too, is all too aware of the apprehension and uncertainty lingering in his preternatural heart._ )

Chihiro offers a small smile in return and nods. “We have some time, after all.”

A wave of relief washes over Mondo as he squeezes Chihiro’s hand in response. The tenseness dissipates from his features, and for a moment, it almost looks like he really could rest in peace if he wanted to.

And until they are wrenched apart by fate, they will tarry silently, hand in hand, here in the waiting room of the great beyond.


	3. someone you can trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They struggle to understand one another, to understand why this happened to them, and they are not sure what they're more afraid of: the answer itself or no answer at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cries this took forever to write, but the end result is still really awful...this chapter has way too much dialogue for its own good and i never properly addressed the matter of ishida but please forgive me, the next one will be better
> 
> also the characters involved are so radically different that it was difficult getting a handle on their dynamic, so if it all seems terrible and cheesy to you then you’re probably right
> 
> also there may be some continuity issues because it’s been a few months since i read the third chapter and i haven’t had much time to go through it

The afterlife is not as glamorous as Yamada had envisioned it to be.

He had been picturing something like Soul Society, the Rukongai, the Cosmos and the Snake Way. He had been anticipating the moment he showed up on Enma’s doorstep, waiting to discover the fate of his immortal spirit. He had expected something even better than the grey monotony of the three-dimensional world that so harshly scorned him.

Perhaps he had only been deluding himself, clinging so desperately to what now seem like childish dreams.

He slouches against the wall of the infirmary and closes his eyes. Surely, this must be a terrible nightmare, he’ll wake up soon and she will yell at him and he’ll scramble to make her milk tea and everything will go back to the way it was—

“Oh, goodness. Fancy running into you again, Yamada-kun.”

His head whips up to see none other than his graceful murderess standing before him, translucent in the fluorescence of the infirmary lights. She looks like a dream, an unfinished sketch highlighted and shaded with tints of scarlet and onyx _(and what a shame, for he remembers her as a true work of art that the pen could never replicate)_. Her smile is acrid, angry, and tightly controlled.

Nothing worse could possibly happen to him at this point, and yet he finds himself nonetheless terrified.

“C-Celestia Ludenberg-dono!” he sputters, nearly jumping to his feet. “It’s you! You can see me! Are you alive?”

She sighs and flicks one of her clip-ons over her shoulder. “I’m afraid not. Naturally, I was executed. If it hadn’t been for you and that mouth of yours, I would’ve very nearly escaped that fate.”

Guilt strikes him like a lightning bolt once again, stinging him down to his very core.

“Celestia Ludenberg-dono, may I ask you question?”

“I will do you the favor of answering one of your questions if you answer one of mine,” she replies. Her voice is completely devoid of its trademark playfulness and cunning.

Yamada swallows and stares at the ground. “Of course. What is it?”

“How did you know my real name?”

He inhales sharply. He knew this question was coming, but he still does not know how to answer it.

“I suddenly had the sense that we had met each other before,” he explains dejectedly, twiddling his thumbs, concentrating on the pale linoleum of the infirmary floor. “We just couldn’t remember.”

Celestia blinks, her expression a perfect poker face.

“I find that a bit hard to believe, you know,” she mutters, pressing her knuckles lightly to her lips. “Why in the world would that be?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Celestia Ludenberg-dono. I’m sorry...I never meant to ruin everything for you.”

Her blank expression wavers for a fleeting moment, flickering to something vaguely resembling alarm. “Very well. I can’t say I find it in my heart to fully forgive you yet, but give me some time and I just may do so.”

She steps closer to him, and if he had a beating heart, he’s certain it would be racing right about now.

“Now, I’ve upheld my end of the deal. What is it that you want answered?”

He cannot look her in the eye right now, cannot stand that cold, judgmental stare that he normally cherishes so deeply.

“Is what you told me about Ishimaru Kiyotaka-dono true? I mean — that he stole Alter Ego — and did those things to you?”

She looks uncomfortable for a moment before turning away from him.

“It was all a lie. He didn’t do anything. I just wanted to get rid of him.”

Even if they are merely fake ectoplasm replicas, he can’t stop the tears forming in his eyes.

He ruined everything. He never wanted anyone to suffer like this. He didn’t want her to suffer, didn’t want Ishimaru — Ishida? — to attack anyone else, he believed that from the bottom of his heart, he truly did—

“Farewell, pig boy,” she calls out, waving a pale, dainty hand as she makes her way towards the doorway. She stops abruptly, pausing, as if she suddenly remembered a crucial obligation she had.

He holds his breath, recoiling in advance for whatever toxic words she may sling his way.

“You did make the best milk tea, you know,” she murmurs.

She starts to walk away once again, and if his ears did not deceive him, he could have sworn she sounded a little rueful.

***

When Ishimaru comes to in the art storage room, his memory is in shambles.

He feels faintly cold and surprisingly light, as though he is floating on air.

When he stands to his feet and stares down at his hands only to find that they are deathly pale and he can see right through them, he knows something is terribly, terribly wrong.

He closes his eyes and holds the sides of his head, trying with every last bit of energy and will in him to recall what happened before he blacked out. He remembers — with a cringe, no less — Oowada’s brutal execution, he remembers a computer, something having to do with Fujisaki, and the sight of a hammer—

A faint, almost nonexistent chill bolts down his spine and right up to his fingertips.

He’s only just beginning to process what has happened to him when he hears the distant sound of feet pounding against the wood flooring.

“Ishimaru Kiyotaka-dono!” Yamada shouts as he barges through the door, bending over ever so slightly to catch his breath (although, if Ishimaru’s suspicions are correct, this is wholly unnecessary — it seems so strange, so inappropriate for entities like them). “I have a confession I need to make!”

“Please, Ishimaru Kiyotaka-dono,” Yamada pleas, clapping his hands together and bowing his head, “forgive me!”

“She told me that you had stolen Alter Ego, but more than that...Celestia Ludenberg-dono...she told me that you had done unspeakable things to her! Vulgar things!”

He imagines that his blood would turn to ice if it was still flowing through his veins.

“That can’t be...” he mutters, trailing off and staring at the floor, trying desperately in vain to steady his trembling hands. “Celes-kun’s morals may be lacking, but she would never do something so deplorable!”

“She fooled us.” Yamada sighs dejectedly and slouches forward. “How depressing. She was the only 3D girl for me, even after we died...”

Despite the tempest of panic and confusion raging inside Ishimaru, he kneels down and grips Yamada’s shoulders with conviction.

“If that’s the case -- if what you said is true, then I cannot bring myself to hold a grudge against you, Yamada-kun. I don’t approve of vigilantism, but in our situation...” He trails off, attempting to gather his composure as Yamada looks at him expectantly. “Perhaps things are not so black and white as I once thought. I forgive you.”

Yamada is crying now, tears streaming down his face and fogging his glasses (how that works on a metaphysical level is a mystery). Something stirs within Ishimaru at the sight, something profoundly painful and heart-shattering—

“Thank you, Ishimaru Kiyotaka-dono,” he says between heaving sobs that rack his body. “I think I’ll be able to rest in peace now...or try to, anyway.”

Ishimaru feels something akin to peace wash over him, and his grip softens.

“Good. Now,” he says, rising to his feet. “I’m going to go find her. Our deaths will not be in vain!”

He pauses just outside of the storage room, leaning against the wall — as well as a ghost can without floating through the plaster, anyway. Nothing is tangible, nothing is real, for even Yamada’s shoulders felt like nothing more than cold air to his palms.

Even as he drums up every ounce of courage he can manage, he can’t stop himself from sliding against the doorframe and weeping.

Where did everything go wrong?

_(What could he have done?)_

***

She is wandering the hallways of the dormitory when she encounters him.

She stops in her tracks, maintaining her impenetrable poker face as she regards his luminescent form in the otherwise pitch black of what she can only assume is the night. The times of the day have become purely artificial since they step foot in this school.

He is frozen in place, his eyes widening and his face twitching with what she can only assume is panic.

“Celes-kun,” he rasps out, eyes darting wildly around, looking at anything except her. It’s almost cute, she notes bitterly.

“Well. I can’t say I expected to run into you here, Ishimaru-san.” She folds her arms and takes a few confident steps towards him; he, naturally, responds by taking an equal amount of steps backwards until he’s backed against a wall. It’s adorable, how afraid and apprehensive he is. She couldn’t ask for better circumstances under which to meet him. “You look like you have something to say. Why don’t you spit it out?”

All the color has drained from his face in this ghostly form of his, but she imagines he would be flushing quite heavily if it weren’t for that. He swallows, his eyes still refusing to meet hers as he still attempts to speak with a shred of vim and verve.

“I...I wish we did not have to meet in such an unfortunate situation, Celes-kun, but I must confront you about the obvious matter at hand,” he says, folding his translucent arms tightly across his chest. “We have nothing to hide now. I demand an explanation for what happened — for what you did to me and Yamada-kun.”

She can feel the amused expression on her face dissipate into a look of vague disapproval. She had prepared herself for this moment, had concocted an elegant explanation teeming with deception and falsities for the mere satisfaction of it. And yet, those words resound sharply, painfully in her mind—

“We have nothing to hide now.”

For the first time in their encounter, she looks up at him and his eyes, fearful and brimming with untold emotion, meet hers.

“I did what I had to do, Ishimaru-san. It was nothing personal, you see.”

There is nothing more to gain from cloaking herself in a veil of lies, but stripping away each layer of falsehoods only reveals another until there is nothing left, nothing but grimy greed and desperate selfishness, a desire to escape who she once was—

_(— for what else could remain of a girl whose very name was a lie in more ways than one?)_

“Someday, I’ll tell you what was really going through my mind. I haven’t been able to come up with a way to relate it so that it is... _palatable_ for you and Yamada-kun, you see. It seems that we’re not going anywhere, however, so I believe you can wait until then.” She turns on her heel (those eyes of his were growing too uncomfortably condemning for her) as she prepares to leave. “ _Auf wiedersehen_ , dear hall monitor. I do hope the afterlife treats you well.”

“I...Celes-kun, you--”

“...Perhaps you do deserve it, after all.”

She begins to walk away, her heels making no noise as they hit the tile floor, as she ignores his damned quivering voice and disbelieving expression and his hope, his laughably unfounded hope that she would be the key to understanding why this happened to them--

and for the first time in her short existence, Celestia Ludenberg feels guilty for taking something that wasn’t hers.


End file.
